


Turn Left AU

by RyanW



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-29
Updated: 2019-11-29
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:02:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21601900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RyanW/pseuds/RyanW
Summary: In one universe it's Donna Noble. In another, it's Martha Jones.
Relationships: Martha Jones & Rose Tyler
Comments: 1
Kudos: 15





	Turn Left AU

There's traffic backed up three streets at least, and she'll be late for work at this rate. Very late. She gets there eventually, better late than never right?, but it's not there. The hospital is just gone.

"It was raining up," an elderly woman says to her.

"How do you mean, up?" Martha asks.

"Well, it was raining all morning over the hospital, and then the rain started going into the cloud instead of out of it, and then the hospital disappeared!"

There's a huge crowd of people swarmed around where the Royal Hope used to be. It's loud, people talking over each other and police shouting orders that no one listens to. But in the middle of it all, twenty feet from Martha, a young woman catches her eye. She looks distraught, but there's something off about her, and when she turns Martha's direction they lock eyes for just a second too long. Then she shakes her head and walks away.

The hospital is returned, almost everyone is safe, except for one patient, missing, and Martha's teacher, dead. The survivors talk about the moon and rhino-men and one even mentions a vampire of some sort. Martha's not sure what to believe.

The woman is leaning against her door.

"Martha Jones," she says.

"How do you know my name?" Martha demands. She's got her keys in one hand, ready to fight if need be, but she doesn't think it'll come to that. The woman looks exhausted.

"I'm sorry."

"Answer my question."

"You have to find him," she says instead, "It's the only way."

"Find who? Why?" Martha doesn't know why she's even listening to this mad woman instead of calling for help or ignoring her.

"The Doctor. He needs you."

Martha scoffs. "Yeah? Well, I'm plenty busy with my family needing me every other day so no thanks."

"Martha." The woman stands up straight. "You don't know what he's like without you there to stop him. How dangerous he'll become." She looks scared, no, terrified, and Martha softens.

"Are you all right? Is this doctor fellow threatening you? I can-"

"No. He doesn't know I'm here. If he does, I don't know what he'll do. That's why you need to find him. Stop him from destroying everything."

"I don't understand."

The woman looks away. "Your sister, Tish, right? Go with her to the Lazarus thing tonight."

There's a man, mad as a hatter, and he has to be the doctor the woman mentioned. And Martha understands a bit why she was so scared of him. There's something in his eyes, something that shows just how easy it would be for him to do something horrible. But he saves the day in the end, stops Lazarus from killing everyone and going on a rampage of some sort. She doesn't understand half of what's going on, and Martha hates not knowing. The man barely looks at her even as she risks her life to help him.

"Thanks," he says shortly, and briskly walks away.

"I tried," Martha says when she next sees the woman. She nods, but her eyes look troubled. "What are you so afraid he'll do?"

"There's an election coming up, isn't there?" the woman asks instead of answering. "Don't vote for Saxon."

She sees on the news that Saxon murdered the president before mysteriously dying. The man is there, in the background, and she wonders what role he played in whatever happened.

"It's too late," the woman says from her couch. Martha doesn't even bother to question how she got into her flat.

"For what?"

"For this universe," she says. "It was already weak to begin with, and now there's nothing we can do to stop him."

"Will you please, just once, explain what's going on?" Martha asks. Her voice sounds tired and frightened, and maybe it's because she is.

The woman thinks for a moment, then nods. "I can try. What do you want to know?"

"Who are you? Who is that man? And what do you mean it's too late for this universe?"

"I'm Rose; I'm just an ordinary human like you. He's called the Doctor. He's an alien, the last of his kind, the most powerful man in the universe."

"Are you enemies or something?"

Rose laughs shortly. "Not exactly. We traveled together, but then something happened and we were separated."

"And now you're scared of him."

"I'm scared of what he'll do. You were supposed to be with him after I lost him, you were supposed to keep him grounded. Stop him from doing the unthinkable."

"Whatever he's about to do is my fault, is that what you're saying?" Martha snaps. Rose's eyes widen.

"No! Not at all. You  _ were _ there with him, in the real universe. But something went wrong, someone changed time. There's something on your back and it's making everything-" Rose cuts off. "You're brilliant, Martha Jones. Always remember that."

Martha doesn't answer. Rose continues.

"I don't know what exactly happened with Saxon, but whatever it was, it broke the Doctor. It's not good for him to be alone, especially not after something traumatic. But he was, in this timeline, and losing Saxon was the final straw. He's going to tear this universe apart. Literally."

"So how do we stop him?" Martha asks. Rose gives her a pained look, and she already knows the answer. "We don't, do we?"

"This universe has to end, it's the only way. We're in a parallel universe centered around you, and that's not supposed to happen. When the Doctor tries to break open the walls between universes this one will… cease to exist. You probably won't even remember it. Just, if you see him, tell him the stars are going out. In every universe. And tell him 'Bad Wolf'. You get that, Martha? Bad. Wolf."

Martha opens her mouth to ask another question, but before she can the world shakes beneath her and everything goes dark.

She wakes up to the Doctor shaking her arm. "Martha! You awake?" he asks as he hugs her.

"Yeah, I'm fine. What happened?" She pushes him away gently. Something in her is scared of him, but she shoves that thought away.

"The Trickster. Likes to mess with people's individual timelines. Usually nothing major but you're a time traveler so there would have been some nasty consequences. But it just fell off, dead. Strange. A parallel universe created and collapsed by one beetle."

He's poking at some big black bug lying on the floor next to her, and Martha shudders away from it.

"What are you doing here?" she asks.

"Oh, Donna wanted to visit her family so I thought I'd pop by and say hello. Do you remember anything from the other universe?"

"Bits and pieces," she says, "A woman."

"A woman?" he raises an eyebrow, "I didn't know you swung that way."

"There's a lot you don't know about me," she snaps before she can stop herself. "Sorry. Um, I met you. Once."

"What was I like?"

She doesn't want to tell him he was scary, so she elects not to say anything. He nods after a moment.

"Right then. Anything else?"

"Not really. Wait," she rubs her face, "The woman, she said something. The stars are going out."

"That universe is gone," he says in what she's sure is supposed to be a comforting voice, but it sends a shiver down her spine when she remembers who destroyed it.

"No, in every universe. And there was something else. What was it?" she groans to herself. "Some fairytale thing."

"Martha," he says harshly, and when she looks at him she sees he's shaking. "What was it?"

"Bad Wolf."


End file.
